Professor Smith joined the Department of Philosophy in 2009 as an Associate Professor of Philosophy after teaching for ten years at the University of Washington in Seattle. In the fall of 2008 she had visited Washington and Lee as the first Fellow in the Program in Society and the Professions. in 2013 she was promoted to Professor of Philosophy, and appointed to be the first Roger Mudd Professor of Ethics and the first Director of the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics. She teaches a variety of courses in moral and political philosophy as well as ancient philosophy.

Robert Strong, interim provost and chair of the search committee, announced Smith's appointment:

"Angie Smith is an accomplished teacher and scholar who, in her short time at Washington and Lee, has earned the respect of students and colleagues across campus," said Strong. "She team-teaches a course on the ethics of globalization, and her research is admired by leading philosophers for its clarity, sophistication and originality. She is ideally suited to lead a new interdisciplinary center that will encourage and enhance serious study and conversation on a wide variety of ethical issues."

Education

Ph.D. Philosophy, Harvard University (1999)

B.A. Philosophy and Political Science, Willamette University (1992)

Research

Professor Smith’s research interests concern the connections between morality, moral agency, and moral responsibility. She has published a number of articles exploring whether, and if so in what way, we are morally responsible for our attitudes – for our desires, emotions, beliefs, and other intentional mental states. More recently, she has written articles on the moral importance of specific attitudes such as blame and tolerance, and she has argued for the existence of robust attitudinal obligations to others. Her work has been published in a number of the leading journals in philosophy, including Ethics, Philosophical Studies, and the Journal of Ethics, as well as a number of edited Oxford volumes. In 2013 she received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities to conduct summer research, as well as a Laurence S. Rockefeller Faculty Fellowship to spend the 2013-2014 school year at the Princeton University Center for Human Values.